Nahoko Dunlap / Kelly Lafferty/RGJ

Alex Maitre / Provided by Alex Maitre

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MARKLEEVILLE, Calif. -- It's 5:30 a.m. and the day is just beginning at Turtle Rock Park.

As the sun begins its daily ritual, hundreds of cyclists wearing jerseys and windbreakers that are so bright they could hurt the eyes are unloading their bikes. They are preparing for a journey that hundreds more have already started.

Every cyclist brings the same attitude to the start of the Death Ride. With 129 miles to go and 15,000 feet of climbing over five peaks in the California Alps, they are optimistic.

There were more than 3,000 participants in Saturday's daylong ride, which stretched well into evening for some. They were hoping to hit each of the five checkpoints, receive the colored sticker that serves as confirmation for each summit and at the end the elusive pin that comes with a finished ride.

But in a ride this difficult, motivation is more personal. Some want to cross it off their bucket list, others are riding to complete unfinished business and others still do it to honor the wish of a family they've never met.

The bucket list

Steve Weir

Steve Weir posed for a picture next to a yellow note tied to a tree at Turtle Rock Park.

He had left that note at 4:15 a.m. for friends from his biking group, Old Farts Club, when they failed to show up on time. It read, "W was here, see you on the road," and had a cartoon head peering over a wall. He couldn't believe it was still here at 6:30 p.m. Nor could he believe what he just accomplished -- a completed Death Ride.

"I've been riding all my life," said Weir, who lives in Contra Costa County, Calif. "This was just something I needed to do."

The 62-year-old has been cycling for 47 years, but he never thought he could finish the Death Ride. He never felt he had enough training or the endurance to reach the five checkpoints, one at each climb's summit. He told his friends they were out of their minds when they encouraged him to purchase another friend's ticket after the friend could no longer go this year.

"This is like the premier tough race, it is prestigious," Weir said. "You got to do it."

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Wier began training with his friends in the Old Farts Club, biking Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County. He made that climb 26 times. He purchased a lightweight silver bike for $8,000 -- he called it the "bucket bike" -- and thought he was ready for the ride.

But the result surprised even him.

Weir left at 4:15 a.m. and planned to hit just three checkpoints on the day. It wasn't until he began cramping down the backside of Ebbetts Pass, after the third checkpoint, that he realized he could finish the race. He chugged a can of V8, the cramping subsided and he decided to "just gut it out."

Weir knew he would be hurting in the aftermath of the ride, but his picture by the tree said it all. He wore his new purple and green Death Ride jersey and clutched his bib number with five multi-colored stickers on it. His smile reached from ear-to-ear.

He could cross Death Ride off his bucket list.

The 10-time veteran

Kent Winger

On the bulletin board in Kent Winger's office at Jacobs Associates there are eight pins. Soon there will be nine.

Saturday was Winger's 10th Death Ride and ninth finish. For Winger, 53, the torturous ride has become a routine, albeit a tough one. The tiny half-inch pin that only people who have finished the ride receive makes the effort worthwhile.

"It's just part of my summer," said Winger, who is from San Leandro, Calif.

He starts logging 100 miles a week two months before the ride, and uses a triple crankset on his road bike to make the climbs easier. It was a lesson he learned the hard way his first year, when he rode the tour on a mountain bike and missed the cut-off time at the third checkpoint at Ebbetts Pass.

"I thought I was a pretty good rider, but obviously I was not," Winger said. "I only completed three passes."

The key is to maintain a consistent pace, especially on the descents when it is easy to expend a lot of energy going too fast. He always stops for a 15-minute lunch - an instant soup and a Coke.

Winger completed the ride in 13 hours on Saturday.

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The toughest part for him is always going up Carson Pass, which is the longest and final summit of the day. There are two rest stops along the way serving fruit and cooling riders off.

"It's not one thing, but the little bits that get you through," Winger said.

Winger said the 2011 Death Ride would be his last.

He isn't able to spend as much time training as he could in the past, and he has already cut back on competing in other cycling events. No other race tops the Death Ride, but doing it for an 11th time might be too much, he said.

Of course, he said the same thing last year.

The Pink Bunny

Nahoko Dunlap

Nahoko Dunlap became known as the "Pink Bunny" during Death Ride on Saturday.

She wore all pink, rode a pink bike and topped the look off with fuzzy bunny ears attached to her helmet. She became an instant hit with fans and riders. At one point during the day someone took video of her and posted it to YouTube. By noon, it had nearly 500 views.

Dunlap, who is from Sunnyville, Calif., rode in Death Ride twice before, in 2008 and 2009, without any intention of finishing. But this year was different -- she wanted to finish. She added the bunny ears to make it more fun. The result was a memorable ride.

"It's just very her," said Matt Dunlap, Nahoko's husband. "She's just very creative and very crafty."

Nahoko was more of a casual cyclist, riding her bike as transportation, before she met her husband. After they were married last year, Matt bought her the pink bike as a present.

With her new bike, she wanted to hit all five checkpoints. The ears helped give her more motivation along the way.

"People would say, 'Go bunny!'" Nahoko said. "It made me feel like I could do it."

It was the checkpoint at Carson Pass that was the site of her most memorable bunny experience. As she rested after the final climb, riders told her how her ears motivated them to speed up.

"At the last stop, people were telling they were trying to catch up to me to say how fun (the ears) were," Dunlap said.

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Dunlap took off the ears after she finished, but to many in the 2011 Death Ride, she will be remembered as the "Pink Bunny."

The No. 420 Bib

Bobby Escay

Bobby Escay had finished Death Ride seven times before, but none meant as much as this one.

Wearing bib No. 420, he rode for Stuart Brotman, a man he never knew with a family he’d never met.

“I was really riding thinking, man, I got to be smart and conservative,” Escay said. “I have to finish this ride for Stuart and his family.”

On Jan. 29, Brotman died after a sudden brain aneurysm at age 44. He was an avid cyclist and would often bike with his 8-year-old daughter, Abigail, across Golden Gate Bridge on his beaten up bike. He loved to be outdoors, hiking and camping.

He worked as a private counselor at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco helping troubled teens and spent his vacations as a counselor at Camp Newman. More than 900 people came to his memorial service, with stories about what Brotman meant to them. When Simon Benazra, his brother-in-law, learned about Brotman’s training for Death Ride, he knew what he needed to do.

“When this happened, I said this was a goal of mine to make sure Stuart finished this race,” Benazra said. “This was the last thing he was working on, and I wanted him to do this.”

He posted a thread on the Death Ride message board asking for a cyclist to ride in his name. More than a dozen people responded. Escay saw the thread and contacted Benazra.

“There were a lot of responses,” Benazra said. “I was just blown away by the people who wanted to ride for Stuart.”

When Escay saw the pictures of Brotman with his daughter, it struck a chord.

Escay hadn’t ridden much in early 2011, as he tried to get back into cycling after adjusting to his divorce. But he said he had to do this ride for Brotman. He went on two major rides a couple weeks before the race, and then leaned on his experience and Brotman to finish Saturday’s ride.

Along the way, he shared Brotman’s story with other riders who asked about a jersey he wore with Brotman’s family on the back. It was an emotional day.

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During one of two Ebbetts Pass climbs, he had an unexpected conversation.

“I found myself talking to Stuart,” Escay said. “I was like, ‘All right man, you did the training for me, keep me going up this hill, we got to finish this ride today.’”

Escay took his time, slowing for pictures and video he will send to Benazra and the Brotmans. He stopped twice at a restaurant along California 88 to update Benazra. He also plans to send the No. 420 race bib with its five stickers to Benazra.

“Just because of how important it was for Stuart and his family that I didn’t even know, it became really important for me,” Escay said.

It took 10-and-a-half hours, but Escay, with Brotman in spirit, crossed the finish line.

The official Death Rider

Alex Maitre

Nothing could stop Alex Maitre from completing an official Death Ride.

Heading into the Saturday, the 40-year-old was months behind his usual training schedule. As a war planner and disaster response planner in the Navy, he was pulled away from training for four weeks to help in the relief efforts in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami. He didn’t return to training until early April.

The week of the Death Ride, his bike came loose from his car and ended up in the road. He also suffered corneal abrasions in his eye that week. Maitre said people told him he shouldn’t race, but nothing could stop him from doing Death Ride.

“I needed to get a new bike and my eye right because I am doing this ride,” Maitre said.

This wasn’t the first time Maitre was supposed to miss Death Ride. The month before the event in 2003 he was deployed. He had trained for months in preparation with his San Diego cycling group, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. But he was also already near the course for a different race when he received the news.

So he and friend Gary Poles did the ride without the support crews, the crowds of people or the checkpoint amenities. They brought a supply of water and went on their way. About 75 percent of the way through, he ran out of water and drank from a stream to finish. He completed the ride, but landed in the emergency room four days later.

He said this year he was in worse shape, but his experience in 2003 helped. When he reached the toughest part of the race, climbing up Carson Pass, he knew what to expect.

“This time I knew and it helped me a huge amount,” Maitre said. “Now I understood how far I had to go, and it helped me get to the top.”

Maitre said this ride beat his experience from before because he could help other riders to continue. At one point, he gave a rider throwing up in a ditch his Enduralite to rehydrate. He said he enjoyed the crowds of people ringing cowbells and cheering the riders.

“The fact that I did it in 2003 unsupported was pretty cool,” Maitre said. “But it was a lot more lonely.”